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- | Elsa and I arrived in Baños just before
Midnight, and much to my suprise, she insisted on going to the local radio
station. You see, Elsa has absolutely no interest in radio - in fact,
it seemed that her only interest was to see the antenna and get
the Hell out of there. Ironically, I wasn't keen on going
to some flea-bag MW station during their graveyard shift and waste expensive
film and sleep time. My priority was to tour SW stations. Let
me change that... My priority at that moment was to find anything
solid and fall asleep - on the steps of a church if I had to!
 As
it turns out, Elsa's friend in Baños is an announcer and manager
of La Voz del Santuario! And if that wasn't enough the station used
to be on shortwave over ten years ago, but they quickly realized that SW
means "no dinero." As I stood in the studio, which occupied the entire
top floor of a townhouse, my jaw dropped at the sight of high-tech DAT
multi-tracks, US$5000 digital processors, automated DAT cart machines,
and a complete library of Network Music production music. Talk about
having friends in high places! Yes, "La Compania," that is, the church
heavily funds this station.
We left the radio outlet to collapse in her friend's home. The next morning, we got up early and went downtown to catch yet another bus for Tena off in the distant Oriente.  Tena
is roughly eight hours from Baños, and if anyone wants to take a
real roller coaster ride, the only road leading into the city from the
south is highly recommended. In order to get there you must drop over 2000m
through weaving and muddy roads – sometimes swerving precariously close
to deep jungle chasms. I clearly recall poking my head out of the bus window
to see the vehicle’s wheels six inches away from a cliff as we were bolting
down a mountain. About two hours from Tena, the bus began to pick up school
children wanting to return home. These kids, natives of the Amazon, must
commute 20 to 40 kilometers just to study and it hit me just how important
radio really is in areas like this where there are no telephones and where
the jungle imposes such a tremendous isolation.
Tena is a relaxed, slow-paced and extremely humid town with caves and jungle trips to offer for tourists. But I had two other locations on my mind: La Voz del Napo and Radio Oriental. Elsa had only one: the caves.  La
Voz del Napo, easily heard on 3280 kHz at 1000 GMT, is situated toward
the back of a small college campus run by a Franciscan missionary called
Misión Josefina. We walked by a group of kids playing soccer and
bumped right into the station’s director, Ramiro Cabrero. He kindly returned
to the station’s pretty building with us for a short tour.
La Voz del Napo clearly appreciates the cards and letters it receives. In fact, most of the walls are covered with pennants, photos and postcards from all over the world. He estimates that two reports come in each week for their morning program and all are answered when possible with a card and colorful pennant. As I stood in the studio, looking more like a DXer's ugly shack with cards and photos tacked to the walls, names jumped out at me: Fred Kohlbrenner, Roland Archer, Steve Martin, John Fisher... "I remember your letter," Ramiro smiled as if he had solved a great mystery. "You sent a photo of yourself some years ago!" My jaw nearly dropped and a sense of uneasiness set in since when this fellow sent a verification card to me, it was accompanied by a request for "a couple of hundred dollar bills..." Hopefully, he wouldn't take the opportunity to hit me up for a donation to his... Eh... Charity. 
The station uses a CCA AM 2.5000 D/HF transmitter, just down the hall from the on-air studio, and its dipole antenna above the building pushes out about 2.5kW from 1000 to 1200 and 2300 to 0300 GMT every day. Secretary Solia Verdesoto explained to me that the station mainly serves the school’s students, most of whom come from isolated communities in the Amazon where there are no telephones. “They tell their families to listen to Napo for any messages they may have, for instance, if they need money or help.” My mind quickly jumped to the admiration I have of those school children traveling so far on the bus we arrived in.   Napo
is a small station. It’s been on the air for 28 years and employs only
five people – all teachers and administrators of the college. They expect
to move the antenna and transmitter to another site, and in doing so, will
also change the frequency.
Ramiro quickly left for a teachers' meeting but invited Elsa and I to leave our bags inside the studio to tour the city, which we did. We immediately rushed three blocks away to Radio Oriental before their office closed for the day. |